Twitter Will Livestream One Of The Worlds Biggest Horse Races

Twitter is taking its sports live streaming very seriously lately. After setting up a host of different deals for live sports broadcasts, it is now going to be streaming one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious horse races – the Melbourne Cup.

Twitter announced a partnership with the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) to stream Australia’s 2016 Emirates Melbourne Cup to the platform’s users across the globe. This is the first such live streaming deal to be announced outside the United States. Yup, Twitter is going global with it’s sports broadcasting!

The event takes place on Nov.1 and Twitter will stream pre- and post-race discussion as well as the hour-long race itself. Of the livestream, Director of Media Partnerships, Australia at Twitter, Jonathan Harley wrote

Twitter is where the world of sport is happening every single day, and Australian sporting events don’t come more iconic than the Emirates Melbourne Cup. Live streaming the race to our logged-in and logged-out audience on Twitter and connected devices, combined with the live commentary and conversation on Twitter, will create a one-screen experience at the centre of the action unlike any other.

The first real test to Twitter‘s live streaming capabilities was its Wimbledon and NFL live broadcasts recently. These went down with much success. The NFL game itself drew in 2.3 million viewers globally. There may be a few teething problems with the technology, but Twitter is sure to iron these out over time, as it continues with current and future deals.